Mental Health

Having just recovered from another one of many depressive episodes I’ve had throughout my life, I’ve had time to reflect on my relationship to madness and reality. Being of a philosophical bent, I ruminate on these things out of habit. …

I am working through one of those once a half-decade-or-so massive health shifts that folks with any chronic condition may find familiar: a rapid shift in function, surgery to implant more metal bits in me that set off alarms whenever…

As a person with mental health disabilities, nothing makes me seethe like those who create inspirational memes that do more damage than good to the people in my community. Whenever I encounter such feel-good shibboleths, my hands tense, my breathing …

Last year, a friend who hadn’t seen me in a few years asked whether my bright, sparkly purple cane was part of my sense of style. I dress whimsically in colorful outfits with a lot of patterns and he’d never …

Before I entered college, I never thought about disability. Or at least, I never thought about it with that exact word.Mental illness. Mentally ill. Disorder. Burden.These were all words I used to describe myself before “disabled” and “disability” …

A dichotomy is defined as a contrast between two things. It is two stones with a gulf between them, two planets on opposite sides of the sun, two opinions, two political parties, two opposites. And in my case, one person. …

When advertising for this year’s New Orleans Disability Pride Festival I was blown away by the positive responses we received, but there was one outlier expressing their disapproval whose words I just cannot shake. Amid the cries of “This is…

Note: In an effort not to conflate the specific legal meanings of “mental illness” with the intentionally broad umbrella term “neurodivergent,” the following article predominantly uses the terms “mental health” and “mental illness” rather than “neurodivergent.” However, in certain cases…

Statistics on the transgender community are hard to come by — we can’t even agree on how many people in the United States are trans. We do know, however, that trans people experience significant health care disparities, particularly in…

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About us

Rooted in Rights tells authentic, accessible stories to challenge stigma and redefine narratives around disability, mental health and chronic illness. As part of Disability Rights Washington, our Seattle-based team of disabled video producers, editors and digital organizers partner with both local coalitions and national advocacy campaigns to fight for concrete changes for our community.